Extended Producer Responsibility - Implications on Small Island Developing States (SIDS)

While extended producer responsibility (EPR) has been developed since the 1980s, mainly in European countries, to regulate uncontrollable waste volumes, the implementation of the concept in small island developing states (SIDS) is indeed an innovative solution to address waste management problems in a fair and long-term way. Many SIDS face massive waste management problems due to a lack of land, a high import rate of packaged goods, a heavy reliance on tourism, institutional bottlenecks, an unclear distribution of responsibilities, and low transparency of data. For this very reason, it is important to talk about the possibilities of an EPR system to combat the growing volumes of waste, the increasing costs of waste collection for residents, and the loss of valuable natural resources.

This handbook aims to provide background information on EPR to all stakeholders along the value chain of a product as well as to country policy makers, to highlight the benefits of such a system and different tools for implementation, to show best practice examples as well as to refer to SIDS countries particularly affected by dysfunctional waste management and to provide action instructions and stakeholder implications for efficient implementation